


war (and the scars that will never heal)

by writingpenguin



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst, F/M, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 05:51:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11142252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingpenguin/pseuds/writingpenguin
Summary: Sometimes, your demons will never leave you.(orthe Robin was tortured in the war AU that no one asked for)





	war (and the scars that will never heal)

She screams in her sleep. 

The metal tearing through her flesh is painfully real, and she feels her limbs burn with magical fire. Her arms ache as they hang from rusty chains that bite into the raw skin of her wrists. 

Their questions are barbed insults and promises, and her tears are streaming down her face. There are times when she begs them to stop—she is not strong enough to endure the pain and uphold her beliefs, her dignity, and the values of the halidom that she has sworn to protect. There are times when she holds her silence—these are when the faces of who she holds dear burn bright in her mind's eye. (I will never betray you.) 

The room she sees is damp and dark, and she can smell metallic scent of her lifeblood, the nauseating stench of her cooked flesh and the foul odors of her own waste as she lies on the cold and filthy floor of an almost forgotten dungeon. 

She remembers this vividly, even when her husband wakes her and brings her trembling form into the warm comfort of his arms. The nightmares do not end when she is awake. 

* * *

Sometimes, she stares into empty space, and Chrom worriedly brings a hand to her face in an attempt to remind her of reality. 

_I am here. I will protect you. They won't hurt you anymore. I promise. I promise. I'm sorry._

These are what he whispers to her in the middle of the night—when her body is tired and dead but her mind painfully awake in the blurred clarity of fear. She shakes her head at him in desperation. No, he doesn't understand. _This isn't about me,_ she wants to scream. _They're coming for you! He's coming for you (and Lissa and Frederick, and I can't keep you safe, I can't, I can't—)_

"Robin," he says softly. He does not want to startle her. "You can trust me. You can tell me anything."

_No. You do not need to go through my pain. No. No. No._

* * *

Sometimes, the nights get better. Robin knows Chrom slips sleeping elixirs into her drinks to give her peace. She does not want to take them—that is the easy way out. 

But she also sees the desperation in his gaze and knows—his guilt eats him alive; her demons haunt him as well. She doesn't stop him. The potions calm her dreams, and she wakes in the mornings that follow with less shadows under her eyes and a clearer mind. She perseveres. 

She is a queen of a halidom, a wife to an exalt, a tactician of an army. She will not fail Chrom and his people again. 

Chrom's face falls when she whispers this to him once under the faint candlelight. "You have never failed me, my love. Please do not think that you have," he begs. 

She responds with a smile, trying to appease her husband. She shouldn't have said that. He does not have to bear any more of her burdens.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes. _For Emmeryn. For those who have died under my command. For being as I am._

"No," he insists, bringing her closer to him. "You have nothing to apologize for." 

The smiles strains. She does not believe it.

* * *

And sometimes, she cries, always in silence and in solitude—they do not need to know. Her tears are messily flowing down her blotchy cheeks. The phantom pains in her limbs still burn. She drowns in the numbness of her heart. 

When Chrom finally finds her, it is in the quiet open field late at night with no moon to guide them. She lays with her cloak discarded to her side, her hair disheveled, and her gaze unseeingly directed to the stars. The air is cold, and she knows that she is shivering—trembling—but it is better than the fire of pain. Her hands are still shaking. She clenches the damp grass beneath her. 

Chrom kneels by her side and gently wipes away the tears on her face. He kisses her forehead; he kisses the dark markings on the back of her hand. 

"Robin." She hears the emotion in his throat, threatening to choke him, and she turns her head towards him because _why does he still speak her name in such reverence when she lies before him absolutely shattered?_

"Robin," he repeats, his voice nothing but a ragged whisper. She lets out a shaky breath.

"I love you."


End file.
